Painted Pictures
by Pantz
Summary: Life is different, you think, than anything you ever imagined it could be.


**_Disclaimer: Everything from HP books belongs to JK Rowling_**

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**_Painted Pictures_**

Time passes slowly for you now. It's hard for you to differentiate one day from the next and you find yourself never knowing whether it's Wednesday or Friday. It's hard for you to remember if it's 1984 or 1985.You shiver slightly as the wind blows through the window and you look up from your spot on the couch. Life feels so cold now, just like your heart.

You look towards the coffee table by your feet and pick up the leather bound photo album lying on its surface. With a shaky hand you open the cover and look inside at the pictures of a life you once lived, a life you shall never see again.

They're all there smiling up at you waving happily at a person the once knew. A small smile appears on your lips as you watch James slapping Sirius and you scolding them. You remember that day. It was the day after they became animagi and it made you four closer than ever. You were in Hogsmeade sharing some butterbeer and had Madame Rosmerta take pictures of you guys. It was the first time Peter laid his eyes on his long time crush and you finally felt totally secure about your life and your friends. It was the day you finally realized that no matter what these guys will be your friends, werewolf or not.

You close your eyes and feel your tears fall down your face. You skim through pages of the album. You laugh at fifth year and see pictures you took of James courting Lily. You see Sirius trying his best not to study for OWLs and stare at James and Lily trying not to laugh. You see Peter drawing his usual comical pictures or all four of you planning a prank.

You quickly look away from the pictures of a life you still yearn to live. Silence consumes you and you feel more lonely now then ever before. You sometimes go to a muggle park and stare at the children playing and the couples falling in love more and more by the minute. You take walks during the day isolating yourself from the only world you've ever known. You're convinced that the only people who will ever accept you are dead, that now you're alone and nobody cares.

You don't read the letters Dumbledore sends you or the ones your one time girlfriend writes. You don't go searching for a job to try to make something out of your now pitiful life. You sit in your house staring at the book of memories hiding away from the world with that album on one side and a bottle of scotch on the other.

You turn the page and find yourself staring at a picture of Lily and James. He has his arm around her waist and both are smiling and blissful. Every so often James leans in and pecks Lily on the cheeks. You watch her smile and see the lively glint in her eye that even a picture can't hide. You smile bitterly as you watch the couple happy and alive. This is the closest you're ever going to get to them ever again, a picture.

You don't hate Sirius. You should, you think. You should despise Sirius and everything he stands for, but you can't bring yourself to hate him. He killed them, you think. He's the reason you're sitting here right now alone in your apartment staring at pictures of the past. But he's also the only one left alive, the only other Marauder still breathing. And you wish more often than not that he could be here with you right now, death eater or not.

You flip through more pages of the album passed graduation and James and Lily's wedding. You stop when you land on a picture of baby Harry smiling up at you from inside his crib. He's a beautiful baby, you think, all you have left in this world. You sometimes wish they gave you Harry and that he was here with you right now because it might have given you something to live for, you have nothing keeping you alive right now.

Sadly, you close the album and walk to the cabinet where your scotch is. There's a framed picture there, the last one you took, it's of you, James, Sirius, Peter, Lily, and Harry all standing there happy and smiling. It was a taking four months before they died on Harry's birthday. You take that in one hand and the scotch in the other and slowly make your way upstairs. You make your way through the darkness to the bedroom were you put the picture of your friends by your bed. There you sit, like so many nights before, drinking your sorrow away. Life is different, you think, than anything you ever imagined it could be. And as your eyes close the picture is still there staring at you, the little figures of your friends still smiling and waving even after the scotch falls to the floor.

End

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